Republic Corruption Does not negate the wrongdoings of the empire.

While the Republic was corrupt and filled with self serving politicians, with poverty in the outer rim and religious interference from the Jedi etc. It's impossible to overlook the Wookie slave ring genocide which occurred due to the obliteraton of Alderaan. One has to conclude that the empire was as bad if not worse than the Republic.

Slavery, Torture, Genocide, Execution Without Trial, Extortion

Documented cases of empire run and supported slave trade (The wookies), torture of political prisoners (Han solo, Leia), Genocide and the destruction of an entire planet full of people to prove a point (Alderaan), the murder of people without due process (Luke's aunt and uncle, the failed commanders that Vader kills), extortion (the cloud city and Lando), consorting with criminal kingpins that run sex slaves, drugs, and murder people (The Hutts).

Yes, because they wanted to turn everyone to the dark side.

The dark side wasn't called the dark side for nothing. Those people were rotten. In real life they were roughly analogous to the Nazis. I believe they were even modeled after the Nazis. They were nothing but pure evil, folks. Their leader employed Jedi mind control techniques, and that's just wrong!

The leaders of the Empire were truly evil.

The Empire's chain of command goes like this:Lord SidiousDarth VaderThe Random OfficersClone HoardEveryone under Darth Vader on the list let the top two call the shots. Clones are totally submissive to command, and the Officers are going to choke if they don't behave. Now that we know that all the command is in Sidious's and Vader's hands, and that they alone are the evil characters, it is obvious that the entire empire a force for evil. Now, personally, I like Darth Vader. He's the best character in the entire series, but totally evil. Choking for a hobby? Not good on a resume. And Sidious... he shoots lightning from his hands, and aims it at poor Luke! Enough said.

Even the Republic in its Most Corrupt State was Better than the Empire

In the Republic, there were some dirty political practices, but the people living under it were far better off than under Palpatine's Empire. The Galactic Empire was basically the science fiction version of fascism. Think about it, they destroted the entire planet of Alderan just because there were a few rebels on it. That probably killed billions of people.

Yes, it was.

Why cavalierly discard the destruction of Alderaan in Star Wars Episode IV—A New Hope? That was an evil act. It involved the murder of billions of sentient lives. That wasn't billions of rebels, it was billions of civilians. While there is a lot of moral ambiguity in trying to suss out ethics, nearly all ethical systems agree that the murder of civilians is evil. Some ethical systems (and society) will tolerate a certain, minimal amount of collateral damage if the end to be obtained is significant and there is no other way to defeat an enemy, but that is morally treacherous water. Luckily for this conversation, the ratio of civilian deaths to enemy deaths was horribly disproportionate here to a degree our actual planet has (obviously) never seen. Further, its motivations of attempting to stifle any and all disobedience through fear of genocide is horrific. More, no not discredited ethical system would support such conduct except, perhaps, utilitarianism. I can envision a utilitarian counterargument that, had the death star sufficiently deterred disobedience, rebellion, and war, it may have actually saved lives in the long run. I don’t much care for this argument, but I don’t have to address it because utilitarianism is concerned with outcomes—not intents. The death star failed to chill rebellion, so the ineffective destruction of a planet cannot be justified on any basis (obviously, other ethical systems would just say it’s wrong to kill that many innocent persons). The imperial murder of the Jawas who captured R2-D2 and C-3PO (and later the Owens) is another example of inexcusable imperial conduct. See, Episode IV—A New Hope. They attempted to locate stolen government secrets. I doing so, they murdered a ton of Jawas who allegedly had the droids containing the death star plans. A few problems here—(1) no trial or any sort of checks and balances (procedural problems), and (2) the punishment was very disproportionate for the crime committed—the Jawas most certainly did not know they were in possession of government secrets. Same, killing the Lars was completely awful. People who unknowingly purchased the droids for farm purposes are, again, executed without a trial. Also, apparently the military tolerates Darth Vader executing military officials without any trial—civilian or military—for conduct ranging to mistakes to excellent being outmaneuvered. Compare, Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back (Admiral Ozzel executed for coming out of lightspeed too close to Hoth altering the rebels to the invasion) with Id. (Captain Needa executed for, ostensibly, letting the Millennium Falcon escape). A government that tolerates its highest ranking officials executing, without due process, persons for essentially negligent conduct is heroically immoral. Same goes for the state sanctioned. It shows a systemic problem with how the Empire’s military went.

Evil Intentions ...

The question is not whether the Empire was better or worse at "doing bad things" than the Republic that came before it. The question is whether the Empire INTENDED to bad things. Because of it's leadership, the Empire disregarded the value of its subjects lives and used and abused them with the express purpose of getting benefit for the Emperor's agenda over the general good of the Empire. The Republic may have committed similarly bad acts, or allowed them through inaction, but it's intentions were to act in a fair and mutually beneficial way.

Evil Intentions ...

The question is not whether the Empire was better or worse at "doing bad things" than the Republic that came before it. The question is whether the Empire INTENDED to bad things. Because of it's leadership, the Empire disregarded the value of its subjects lives and used and abused them with the express purpose of getting benefit for the Emperor's agenda over the general good of the Empire. The Republic may have committed similarly bad acts, or allowed them through inaction, but it's intentions were to act in a fair and mutually beneficial way.

The Empire was Evil.

Now many of you strayed from the topic, the topic at hand is , Is the Empire Truly evil. Now the short answer is yes. The Emperor was evil, many of its leaders was evil and Most of there actions were Evil. Now i am NOT suggesting the Republic was good or better than the Empire either in fact the Republic was corrupt and "evil" in its way as well, but the question falls back to was the Empire Evil. Yes it was. Although it was a necessary evil for the time because the Galaxy needed a centralized government that would bring some sort of order. The Empire did Help bring Economic Prosperity for a time and many people Supported it. But in order for all the empire accomplished it needed to do some evil things like eliminating political opponents, appeasing large mafias that could unmake the empire, and other such things. But again the Empire was Not good or Neutral. IT was EVIL.

No difference between them and the republic

I don't see a difference between them and the old republic other than that the old republic had a corrupt government that was worried more about border disputes than about slavery on tatooine . I don't really see anything that the empire actually did wrong until the Death Star. And even then that was to destroy the rebel alliance. The only reason the Jedi didn't like the empire was because it was run by sith. But they did the EXACT SAME THING that the republic was doing. There was still slavery in the outer rim, the hutts were still in business, etc. The clone wars and the galactic civil war were both USELESS! The whole fight was about Jedi vs sith. And even THATS stupid. I mean why when you get angry do you HAVE to turn to the dark side? When Luke was fighting Vader in the Death Star he got angry and actually WON the battle. But when he didn't be got his hand cut off! I mean why can't you just have anger but not be a huge baby like Anakin? Ok I've gotten a little off topic now.

Only Paladaine was

Vader had an excuse. What happened to him was unrepairable. He lost his mother and his girlfriend. To me there really almost was no bad people in "Star Wars." The only one that was bad was Paladaine as he twisted Anakin's mind. I think he was just as good as the others. So much so, that in the end of the Episode 6, a hologram acting as ghosts shows Anakin alongside Obi-Wan.

I swear allegiance to Darth Vader

Proof: Darth Vader was played by a black man, it sounds very much to me like a case of rebel racism. Further proof: the "rebels" were examples of the same rebellious and unruly spirit as the Confederates had, and they were the original racists. Also George A. Lucas was married to a black woman so draw your own conclusions.

While the fact that the Republic was a decadent rule does not necessarily implicate the Empire was good, it at least proves that the Empire (at worst) was equally bad to the Republic and not actually worse. Hence in this aspect neither of them was "good" and neither was "evil". The Republic was an extremely bureaucratic rule that only cared about the interests of the powerful and wealthy like most political regimes that have existed. They did not care about the welfare of the Outer Rim (i.E. Tatooine and non-Republic planets could be ridden by outlaws, crime syndicates, and slave trade). Republic planets often treated non-humans as crap, i.e. in Naboo the Gungans were treated as inferior to the humans and only when they requested their assistance would they treat them as "supposed equals" (mostly TO USE THEM as cannon fodder). Corusant was ridden with corrupt politicians who only cared about their own welfare and they favored the Jedi Order which is arguably good, because Jedis are oppressive enough in their religious faith to obliterate anyone who thinks different. They would expel and declare as enemies anyone who was against the light side of the force. It is known that any powerful and truly good Jedi would understand BOTH sides and contemplate on them both and not be dogmatically bound to a single side. The Jedis PURPOSELY withheld information from members of the Order and told them that any knowledge of the "Dark Side" was plain evil, any Jedi who is willing to understand the Dark Side is immediately banned and treated as evil. Historically you know who else is so dogmatically narrow-minded and fanatical: people like Nazis, the Roman Catholic Vatican, and Al Qaeda.

The Empire from Star Wars was not truly evil.

In the popular science fiction film "Star Wars", the Empire was not truly evil because in the end Darth Vader kills the Emperor. He has a change of heart because of his son, Luke Skywalker. In the end, human emption conquers the evil of the Empire. It was not all that evil to begin with.

It was not evil.

The empire was not evil at all really the people literally voted them selves into a empire need more proof? The empire did blow up a planet but they only blew it up because of Leia she forced them to do it because of her own selfish needs.Also the rebels killed millions of innocent storm troopers.

The Greater Good

There is no empirical (pun intended) evidence that the Empire was truly evil. We don't see how anyone under the control of the Empire actually lives. We see the rebels, we see Imperial soldiers (who have voluntary enlisted) and we see Luke's life on an uncontrolled outer-rim planet. Let's not forget that "the academy" Luke so desperately yearns to attend at the beginning of Star Wars is the Imperial Academy. Then Luke drank some of Obi Wan's Kool-aid.

The Emperor's sole interest was in the greater good; order in the galaxy. This is something the Jedi failed, after thousands of years of posturing, to provide. The Jedi frequently use their control of the Force to lie and swindle to achieve their own means. On the other hand, the Empire spent the entire original trilogy trying to thwart a terrorist organization bent on destroying the peace they'd established.

Now, Darth Vader was evil. He killed on whim. That's why the Emperor conscripted him. He understood the means to the eventual end. It's also why he tried to convince Luke to "take his father's place at his side". The Emperor no longer needed a cold robotic killing machine. At that point the war with the rebels was seemingly won. He needed someone more diplomatic who could step in and handle things with Luke's levelheadedness, but who could still dispense justice if necessary. Just like he did with Jabba the Hutt.

What proof do you have?

Everyone tries to say that the Empire was evil, but what proof do you have to that argument? Luke was completely unaffected by the Empire's existence, and yet suddenly changes his religion and his world views after an hour of talking to Obi Wan? Indeed, throughout the entire series, you never once see oppression in the empire. The only "evil" thing they do is destroy Alderaan, which was aiding and abetting the rebellion which killed many innocents. At the same time, The rebels killed millions. The jedi were the true cancers to the universe.

They were not.

I think that it is one of cinema's greatest flaws to think that the empire in Star Wars was evil. It was always implied that they were a bad group of people, but it was never actually shown or explained why exactly one should consider them to be an unsavory clan.

There is no evidence to support the claim the Empire is evil.

The basis of the entire Star Wars trilogy (original) is that the Rebels are good and the Empire is evil, but why? The movies show no clear objective evidence other than Rebel hearsay and that the Empire uses the Dark Side of the Force. I would argue that if the force which is plainly seen as the know all good all of the Star Wars Universe then how would one side be better than the other? Just as night is no worse than day, the dark side is never shown to be worse than light. I suppose one could argue that the destruction of Alderaan is what showcases the evil nature of the Empire, but think objectively. The Alderaanians were harboring rebels forces trying to throw off a government for no real reason stated in the movies. Leia is known to have the plans to the Death Star, their primary weapon and plans to use said plans to (successfully) have her pilots destroy the symbol of Empire military. No reason is given as to why. To sum it up, the rebels are just that, rebels. No cause to fight for other than they just want their guys (Jedi) to be in control. The Empire is just squashing a rebellion that eventually they cannot.